carving challenge!

[vestlenning]

Frying spatula sanded and baked with walnut oil along with my "trekopp".

Observe the chisel "grind" on the spatula. As a Norwegian I should of course have made a Scandinavian grind, but I think the chisel grind is more practical.

Both are pine, but with very different colours. The kuksa has gotten really nice after the oil treatment imo.

And doubles as a fly-swatter!

Do the walnut treatment make it better or worse as a fly swatter?

 

[Robson Valley]

They certainly did finish well.

The walnut oil treatment should be more effective than throwing walnuts at the flies.

 

[David LaFerney]

Just started this 2-3 months ago...

Eastern red cedar

Numbers 4 and 5 that I have done - Sycamore (with a buck rub on it) and Hophornbeam (eastern Ironwood) the ironwood looks like muscles to me.

I need to learn to make them look less judgemental.

Biker - Love your Dryad. Care to do a tutorial?

 

[vestlenning]

My girlfriend got inspired by my frying spatula (the fly swatter, according to Harvestman) and made one herself:

 

[Robson Valley]

The handles look too skinny for me. My old hands are starting to get arthritic = having to really curl my fingers and "pinch" to hold a handle hurts. I don't think that I'm alone.
Please make mine 7/8" x 7/8" (Kestrel Constant) with well rounded corners, thank you.

But, I like the shapes. If you were to drill a hole, say 3/4" in the middle of the blade, they splash less with stirring.

 

[vestlenning]

Please make mine 7/8" x 7/8" (Kestrel Constant) with well rounded corners, thank you.

I will tell the missus...

Kestrel constant? Please explain.

If you were to drill a hole, say 3/4" in the middle of the blade, they splash less with stirring.

Good advice, will do.

 

[Robson Valley]

I spent a couple of years building handles and hafting crooked wood carving knife blades which are so common and popular in the Pacific Northwest.
I spent a year making kitchen prep "sticks" (70 spoons and 30 forks). I realized that there was a particular handle diameter which was comfortable of me to hold.
Comfortable for many middle aged and older people to hold, as well. Marketing research with free/hand-out tools gave me that feedback.

From Kestrel Tool, I bought the entire information package with a view to deciding if I really wanted to build up an elbow adze. That's another iconic carving tool in the PacNW.
Kestrel (aka Gregg Blomberg) wrote that the ideal handle size for a day's workout with either adze or knife would be just so that in a fist grip,
"the tips of your second and third fingers just touch the fat ball part of your thumb." So, I picked up dozens of the things I had made.

Those which fit the best matched what I have coined as the "Kestrel Constant." Gregg & Charlie know about it.
For me, for everything, that begins as a 7/8" x 7/8" blank. Next, I built up a very expensive Kestrel D-adze, the last of the common PacNW carving tools.
With no experiment, I carved the handle area to 7/8" square. The result was just as I had hoped.
I have big hands and long fingers, span is almost 10"/25cm without stretching too much.
Average hands, I suggest 3/4" to start.

The holes in the spoons is a trick recommended by two professional chef friends in a Culinary Arts School.

Here are some examples:

 

[vestlenning]

Very nice carving tools, Robson Valley!

Thanks for explaining the "Kestrel Constant"; I will try it out when I make my next handle.

 

[Robson Valley]

Thank you. I use them daily. Their versatility surprised me.

The elbow adze also displays the "Holm Constant", not something that you would ever recognize.
My elbow adze is 55 degrees. When you come off the bevel edge at 90 degrees, that point on the handle is the ideal
placement for the top of your first finger in the grip.
If you have no plans to spend day after day after day on totem poles or feast dishes, maybe it doesn't matter.
On a 60" carving for me, it does.

That's the break between the upper yellow whipping and the middle black whipping. That's the top of where I grip the adze.
BTW, no adhesive. both those adzes are whipped hard and dry and they don't wiggle.

Have to add this: If you strike like a maniac with an adze, you won't last 20 minutes. Listen to your heart.
While it may seem abyssmally slow, strike at your heart rate and you can go all day!

 

[humdrum_hostage]

Let's revive this thread as I have had a bit of time on my hands recently.

These are both made of cherry. The cup/kuksa (not sure when one becomes the other) had a small void in the middle of the ring with some sort of sap in it, which ended up right where my handle was and it also has a pin whole in the side of it, maybe be just decoration now. It ended up a bit smaller than planned but still holds pretty much bang on 100ml. The spatula is for my kit bag and will have a small length of cord through the handle soon.

 

[humdrum_hostage]

I will bump this as a few of you have been at bushmoot and the thread dropped to page 2

I have done a few more bits but haven't had a chance to picture them yet.

 

[Harvestman]

Good work. Love that spatula.

 

[humdrum_hostage]

Good work. Love that spatula.

Its going in my kit bag for my next trip.

 

[humdrum_hostage]

I got some unknown yellow wood and didnt want to make anything for food use so I just started hitting it with my adze to see what happens. Once I got going I thought about the bowls that are measured with a compass, nails and string. Now I want to get a big ring and try the technique properly.

And of course the other half has nicked it already for her jewelery.







Any one else made one of these bowls?

 

[Wayland]

not done much in the way of wood spirits but done some Viking God posts as you can see in this picture.

I think I should post this one here because I'm still ridiculously chuffed at how well it worked out.

Finished with a mixture of Linseed oil and Stockholm tar.

 

[forginhill]

Fun thread to look through! Amazing work on display here!

 

[Arya]

🛁

Thanks but idon't think these guys need any motivation, but here's a recent one of mine

Wow! The expression on this one is really impressive!

 

[Robson Valley]

This is wonderful. Great display of diversity. My GF found a brand of dark rum, very heavily laced with vanilla. If I wrote it down, I can't find it.
Maybe this next weekend in the city, I'll recognize it if I see it.

All to explain that it's high time that I tried to carve a kuksa for such a ceremonial drink.

 

[humdrum_hostage]

This is wonderful. Great display of diversity. My GF found a brand of dark rum, very heavily laced with vanilla. If I wrote it down, I can't find it.
Maybe this next weekend in the city, I'll recognize it if I see it.

All to explain that it's high time that I tried to carve a kuksa for such a ceremonial drink.

Its about time I made another kuksa but I am struggling to get hold of some wood at the mo